Scuffles break out between Paris youth, police on second day of student protests

Friday, October 18, 2013 - 01:17

Oct. 18 - Scuffles break out between demonstrators and riot police in Paris as thousands of youths take to the streets to protest against the deportation of two students. Mana Rabiee reports.

▲ Hide Transcript

▶ View Transcript

Clashes in Paris, between angry youth and riot police.
It started peaceful enough.
Earlier on Friday, thousands of students protested near the Paris Opera, while other students blocked several area high schools.
It was a second day of demonstrations to protest the deportation of two foreign students.
One was a 19-year-old of Armanian origin.
The other, a 15-year-old, taken off a school bus during a class outing and deported with her family to her native Kosovo, where she reportedly doesn't speak the language.
The demonstration turned violent as students and other youth were met with riot police.
By mid-afternoon, the protests began to die down.
But the case is just the latest incident in France's agonized debate over migration.
France's Interior Minister has stepped up rhetoric against illegal migrants, but his own Socialist lawmakers complain he's betrayed the principles of the left.
The rhetoric comes as support for the far-right anti-immigration National Front surges in opinion polls, ahead of municipal and European elections next year.

Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world’s largest international multimedia news provider reaching more than one billion people every day. Reuters provides trusted business, financial, national, and international news to professionals via Thomson Reuters desktops, the world's media organizations, and directly to consumers at Reuters.com and via Reuters TV. Learn more about Thomson Reuters products: